The Good Life
Words meaning 'beware'
Pamela Vandyke Price
In every profession and trade there are certain words and expressions possessing extra layers of meaning, sometimes implying 'Be prudent!' to those who are, as a friend expressed it, 'au pair.' Sometimes these apparently anaemic little words are booby-traps of peril: I once read a French dictionary of underworld slang and, realising that the simplest statement or request could be interpreted as pornography, perversion or downright criminal statements, was for a time reduced to speaking English in that country which we should never have let pass out of our hands. Words such as 'gay' and 'congress' now so frighten me that I avoid them by even more than my usual quota of preliminary subordinate clauses.
There are many words thv bode ill in the world of wine tooInter esting' is the most famous, uttered while the taster is praying for guidance as to whether to be truthful ("this beige liquid is foul and whatever it cost you were overcharged") or diplomatic ("I have never tasted anything like it before") which may reveal him as both a fool and a coward to anyone else present who does know something about wine. The word 'expert' is one which even heads of great international corporations beg their press officers to avoid using, as it is such a deadly insult that it carries its own quotation marks quivering in the air when uttered. 'Connoisseur' also merits. the glass dashed in the face, but I think it is slightly more genteel, implying a pettiness of self-esteem.
Then there are words applied to the wines themselves, such as `smooth,' which very few wines of decent constitution should!. be, which is often an adjective desperately clawed at by writers of descriptive prose endeavouring to make a wholly insipid wine sound of some interest. My own dread is wines to which the descriptions 'mellow' and 'supple' are applied; again, the sort of wines that really are mellow, never get this adjective applied to them by those who know them, and when, for example, I see a bin label in a shop reading "Mellow COte de Rheine" or "supple claret" I suspect, often with much justification, that these wines have been commercialised into their mellowness and suppleness by means that do not make them, to me, even money-making party drinks, the need for which I can accept, even if I don't feel called to drink them very often for one is not always travelling -by train and subject to the availability of branded plonk.
An unpretentious paperback, The Wine Trade Student's Companion by David Burroughs and Norman Bezzant, has been prepared for the Wine and Spirits Education Trust Certificate course. and its use will prevent students, both in the trade and among the customers, from ever becoming 'expert' 'connoisseurs' of 'interesting', 'smooth ,"mellow,' 'supple' wines. It will also be very good for general reference, as well as for study by those who are considering going into the wine trade, or who plan fairly serious amateur ',sting sessions. Spirits, liqueurs," beer and current trade practices and basic legislation are all dealt with and there are many simple diagrams and maps. The technicalities are explained so that they are easy to understand even by those who, like myself, are wholly unscientifically minded. How I wish that I had been able to write, concerning the wine yeast, that it is 'first cousin to the truffle and second cousin to the mushroom' — this sort of thing makes, understanding easy and enjoyable. (£2.50 from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, Five Kings House, King's Wharf Lane, Upper Thames Street, London EC4.) A hardback edition is to be published by Collins later in the year.
Pamela Vandyke Price is also wine ,correspondent of the Times.
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